People’s World racks up 22 professional journalism awards

The International Labor Communications Association (ILCA) recently announced the winners of its 2017 Labor Media competition for professionalism in several categories of journalism. People’s World (PW) is a long-time ILCA member, covering the labor movement since the founding of its predecessor the Daily Worker in 1924. This year, PW captured 22 awards for articles published during the 2016 calendar year, including three honorable mentions.

The winners represent some of the best and most inspired work in labor communications and are recognized for promoting the highest standards of labor journalism.

PW is especially proud this year for having won ILCA’s Max Steinbock Award, its highest single award for journalistic excellence. That award goes to Roberta Wood for her passionately researched article “Veterans’ health care in crosshairs of privatization forces,” a model of meaningful, socially relevant expository writing.

The PW winners this year show a remarkable breadth of experience, with notable representation by women, young writers, and people of color. Credit should be given not only to our Editor in Chief John Wojcik, but also to our former Managing Editor Mariya Strauss, who helped nurture the talents of our younger journalists.

In many ways, however, the work of PW is a collective process: Many of our writers also contribute to the production process, copy editing and fact-checking, online analytics, photo selection, and other unseen tasks. In that sense, a single article may be touched by several members of our team before it appears.

We offer our readers the complete roster of winning articles, photo essays, and series, with appropriate links in case you missed seeing them the first time or would like to refresh your memory. PW makes no secret of “taking sides—yours!” But at the same time, we strive to uphold the highest level of committed and reliable reporting: This is what professional journalism looks like!

In the category of Best Series, PW did especially well, capturing first, second, and third places: First place went to “The Pulse shooting in Orlando,” by the team of C.J. Atkins, Patrick Foote, Larry Rubin, and John Wojcik. Second place went to “The Flint water crisis” by the team of Patrick Foote, Earchiel Johnson, Larry Rubin, and Blake Skylar. In third place, Chauncey K. Robinson won for her three-part series “What does Black Lives Matter mean under capitalism?” Notable about these three series is that on the surface they appear not to address specifically labor issues, but as our readers know, the PW focus is always on how working-class people are affected, and the ILCA judges recognized that clearly.

Water supplies being unloaded in Flint, Mich. during the water crisis. | Earchiel Johnson / PW

The collective People’s World staff and editors took third place awards for General Excellence for an electronic publication and for Best Design. The complete redesign of the PW website last year undoubtedly contributed to this success.

The awards will be presented at a luncheon of the forthcoming ILCA convention in St. Louis in the days just preceding the national AFL-CIO convention. Most of the People’s World staff will be there to receive their awards in person and to file daily stories on both conventions.

Again, it cannot be emphasized strongly enough that everyone on staff played a role in achieving this remarkable recognition. This year sets a high bar for the future.

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Peoplesworld.org is a daily news website of, for and by the 99% and the direct descendant of the Daily Worker. Published by Long View Publishing Co., People’s World reports on the movements for jobs, peace, equality, democracy, civil rights and liberties, labor, immigrant, LGBT and women’s rights, protection of the environment, and more.